


The blue man

by dimtraces



Series: The blue man [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Force Ghost Anakin Skywalker, Force-Sensitive Finn, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 05:02:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7420963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimtraces/pseuds/dimtraces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Late one night, FN-2187 sees a blue man walking through the dormitory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The blue man

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: internalized abuse (aka stormtrooper training).

“You’re crying, little one,” the blue man says.

FN-2187 stills. He makes himself quiet, and then he looks around to see who the admonishment’s addressed to. Whether he’s safe. His hopes are in vain—no, they're not hopes. He doesn’t want anyone else caught, either. But he has been found out: There is no-one else awake in the dormitory as far as he can make out, and the blue man is looking straight at him.

The blue man has never before talked to FN-2187.

He has not talked to many people since he first appeared on the base a month ago. Most of this time, he’s been in the company of the black-masked man he arrived with, but lately he has taken to prowling the halls and stomping around the corridors, especially at night or when he has been talking to the black-masked man for too long. When he has been shouting and screaming and pleading, “Ben, don’t do this, don’t do this to your mother! Don’t do this to yourself!” (When the walls are suffocating in frustration and sorrow and fear.) The blue man has never talked to any other people on the base, neither teachers nor officers nor troopers, nor recruits like FN-2187. No-one has ever talked to the blue man.

(No-one else has ever called the black-masked man “Ben”.)

Being up this late is a waste of resting-time, and when the blue man reports FN-2187’s offence to his superiors, they will arrange for him to do extra drills tomorrow. They will see him fail, and he will learn his lesson. FN-2187 is valuable, on-track to becoming an officer one day, Lieutenant Phasma always says. By staying awake well into his five hours—because he is _crying_ —he is depriving the Order of his concentration the next day, and unduly lengthening his training. He is wasting resources.

“I’m sorry, sir,” FN-2187 answers.

The blue man starts. He takes a step forward, then another, until he is stalking through the beds and right up to FN-2187. His bluish black synthleather tabard makes no sound as it moves, and neither do his boots. His hair is shaggy, definitely not regulation.

“You can hear me?” the blue man demands as he looms over FN-2187’s little bed. He is very tall, almost as tall as Lieutenant Phasma.

FN-2187 shrinks from him before he remembers to properly greet a superior, and moves to stand up.

“Hush, child,” the blue man says, “don’t get up.” He puts his right arm on FN-2187’s shoulder to hold him down, but softly. FN-2187 must have leaned into the touch, for the blue man looks at him sharply, and tries to remove his hand. Reflexively, FN-2187 stops him, grabbing hold of the gleaming blue durasteel—that does not feel like durasteel, FN-2187 notices—with his tiny skin one.

(It is the first time in five weeks that someone has touched FN-2187, since Zeroes managed to get in a lucky hit during hand-to-hand sparring. Slip, who is in the bed next to FN-2187's, and Nines two beds down and Zeroes, they sometimes hold hands, but whenever FN-2187 asks they pretend not to have heard him.)

He only notices his mistake when the blue man whispers, full of wonder, “You can touch me.”

FN-2187 starts shaking.

This is a test.

No-one has ever replied.

No-one can _see_ the blue man, not even the black-armored man he arrived with.

FN-2178 knows that he is supposed to report strange occurrences to officers or medical staff, and this glowing man who no-one can see certainly meets the definition of _strange occurrences_. FN-2187 should have been suspecting something is wrong. He _has_ been suspecting something is wrong, he is now admitting to himself.

But FN-2187 also knows that troopers who see things that are not there and who _tell_ only rarely return.

And if they do, they’re different.

The blue man appears to have reached a similar conclusion about FN-2187’s likely fate. He kneels down next to his bed, his broad shoulders taking over FN-2187’s field of vision completely, as if to shield FN-2187 from the world. Only how can he, when no-one can hear him? When no-one can see him but FN-2187?

When even the visual barrier he’s erected only holds FN-2187 in and no-one out?

The blue man smiles sadly and whispers, “You are correct, little one.”

As if he could hear FN-2187’s thoughts.

“That is indeed a skill the Force provides,” the blue man says. “And you are Force-sensitive. In another world, a better world—in the world my son and his sister wanted to build, if you’d wanted, you could have learned. But we do not live in this world. We live in a world where _children_ try to recreate _nightmares_ they do not _understand_.” As if sensing FN-2187’s fear at his fury—the blue man is not angry at him, he understands, but FN-2187 has seen what rage does to those who don’t duck fast enough—the blue man takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. Then he opens them again, and locks his eyes onto FN-2187’s. “And now, you are alone,” he whispers. “It’s always the children that—how old are you, ten? I still remember when I hugged my mom goodbye, and you’ve never… Will my crimes never end?”

Impulsively, FN-2187 slides down onto the floor and wraps his arms around the blue man. He looks so _sad_. Impossibly, the action only serves to devastate him more.

“How can you—I’ve seen what they do to you. What they teach you. You’ve been told to leave your friends behind. You’ve been taught that your compassion—your unconditional love, that they’re weaknesses, that you’re wrong, but remember this, please, do not let them take it. Don’t let them take _you_ away. They’re wrong, and you do not belong to them. Your feelings do not belong to them.

“And your _masters_ ”—he spits it like a curse, and oh, in his mouth it sounds worse than inefficiency and disorder and democracy and all the things the Order has ever condemned—“they will not find you now. Ever. I'll hide you. I'll hide this _from you_ , if I must.

“And if you ever find a way out of here, be brave, and don’t look back.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is literally none of the things I am supposed to be working on. But I accidentally started thinking about Finn/Anakin parallels when I got stuck with a section of Epicenter, and here we are. Also, I really like the idea of Force Ghost Anakin haunting Kylo and fuming because no-one will listen, dammit. And if Finn's Force-sensitive and in the right place at the right time...
> 
> Kylo Ren isn't a man yet, but Finn's never seen him without his mask, and Kylo's already quite tall, so Finn doesn't know. I have no idea when Phasma became a captain, but since this is set ~in the past~, it didn't feel right to give her her current rank. I don't rigidly separate Anakin and Vader, and I refuse to believe that changing allegiance in the Force makes you talk differently. I don't know whether you can touch force ghosts and I don't care. Also, this is just about the fastest thing I've ever written, in about three hours, and the only recent research I have done is thinking about Finn a lot (and looking up whether Phasma is taller than Anakin. She is! Not taller than Vader, though.)
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
